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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25417897">Famous</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lex_Munro/pseuds/Lex_Munro'>Lex_Munro</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Suicide Squad (2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Flag's POV, Gen, Iiiiit's Polka-Dot Man!, Leto!Joker - freeform, Mister J: Full-tilt Diva, fem!Ratcatcher, other Squad members - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:47:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,386</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25417897</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lex_Munro/pseuds/Lex_Munro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Waller eyes Flag placidly.  “After Lawton’s had his weekly visit, you’re all being deployed to Coast City, to find and put down some kind of serial bank robber, of all things.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Famous</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just a little snippet of something that's been taking up space on my laptop.  My BFF mentioned how fun it would be to see Polka-Dot Man subvert expectations by being effective ("Taser dot, bitch!" was his line, lol), and I happened to have this.</p>
<p>Context:  the proposed second Suicide Squad movie was going to include a female version of Ratcatcher on the Squad, as well as Polka-Dot Man, which intrigued me somewhat.  Sooooo, the lineup in this storyline is Croc, Boomerang, Flag, Deadshot, Ratcatcher, and Waller's newest toy--the Joker.  I don't want to spoil anything in case I end up posting more of the fic, so I'll just say that he plays along with Waller because "They let me be bad...to do good.  It's delightfully perverse."</p>
<p>Warnings:  mild violence, some hefty swearing.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Famous</b><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>“Prepare to face…Polka-Dot Man!” the guy says melodramatically.</p>
<p>Croc pulls up short.  “P-Polka…Dot…Man?” he echoes.  “Are you for real?”</p>
<p>The bank robber rips a dot off his arm with a sound of Velcro releasing, and flicks it at Croc’s chest.</p>
<p>And, holy hell, Croc yips like a spanked poodle, going rigid and keeling over.</p>
<p>“Taser dot, bitch!” the robber yells.</p>
<p>“Oh, shit, whaaaat?” says Digger, staring at Croc with wide eyes.  Another dot smacks him in the wrist, and he erupts into a dense puff of foam with a noise like one of those screaming rubber chickens.</p>
<p>“Riot foam dot!”</p>
<p>
  <i>~What the hell—Flag, please tell me I can shoot this jackass.~</i>
</p>
<p>“Negative, negative, we are to capture, not kill!” Flag hurries to say, ducking behind a pillar as a dot flies past his face and explodes into neon pink paint.</p>
<p>“Aww, that was only my Pinkest Pink dot…” Polka-Dot Man laments.</p>
<p><i>~Hope you got a contingency for this shit, ‘cause my skinny ass ain’t goin’ up there,~</i> Ratcatcher says.</p>
<p>
  <i>~How about just his hands, Flag?  He don’t need both his hands, right?~</i>
</p>
<p>“Dammit, Lawton, you’ve been around Jay too much—operate under the assumption that whatever expertise allowed him to build all those fancy dots requires his damn hands and is what Waller wants him for!”</p>
<p>Something flies around the pillar and smacks Flag in the side of the head hard enough to knock him on his ass and make him see stars.</p>
<p>“Hah!  Boomerang dot!”</p>
<p>“Oi, that’s my shtick!” Digger complains.</p>
<p>
  <i>~I see a blank on the hip—through-and-through to a spot he’s already used the dot from if he takes just one step forward…~</i>
</p>
<p>There’s another muted explosion, and Flag can see that the whole window is covered in something dark and metallic.</p>
<p>“Aaaand anti-sniper dot!”</p>
<p>
  <i>~Shit, I just lost all my scopes on this guy—thermal, e-mag, IR—I can’t see him, Flag!  Man, this asshole is not worth the damn trouble, no matter what the hell Waller says.~</i>
</p>
<p>“Well, if that’s all, gents, I’ll just be—”</p>
<p>“Why bombs?” Joker asks, crouched at eye-level with a hostage.  He must’ve dealt with the gang members at the vault, because he’s got blood stains of various sizes and dryness all over his torso and half his face.</p>
<p>Flag can’t get a shot on anything non-lethal from his angle that doesn’t have a dot on the other side.  No telling what any of those damn things does…</p>
<p>“Huh?” asks Polka-Dot Man.</p>
<p>“You’ve been using non-lethal gizmos,” the Joker points out.  “So why bombs?  I can tell you from experience, they’re pretty messy.”  He stands and shrugs.  “Unless you like gas…then you can usually keep it pretty clean, depending on the gas.  Not a fan of hemotoxins…those are just…blech.  Red’s not really one of my favorite colors, my current attire notwithstanding.”</p>
<p>“Who the hell are you?”</p>
<p>Joker pouts.  “Who the hell am I?  Are you goddamn serious right now?”  He’s been slowly working his way closer.  “What are they teaching kids these days?  Was a time just the mere whisper of me made people cringe—the smallest <i>glimpse</i> of me could incite nightmares!  I’m fucking famous!  Flag, am I not famous anymore?”</p>
<p>Flag flinches as they both look at him.  “Well, I mean…sorta?  In Gotham, sure.”</p>
<p>“Dammit!”  Joker shakes his head and shrugs.  “Well, at least I don’t have a bullet in my knee, right?”</p>
<p>“What are you talking ab—OW!” Polka-Dot Man yelps as Joker shoots him in the knee (right between two dots, in fact).  “Fuck!  Fuckfuckfuck!  You asshole, that really hurts!”</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”  Joker huffs a sigh and rolls his neck.  He crouches next to the writhing baddie.  “Ugh, I really wish I could cut your stupid hands off right now.  Or sew your fingers together, maybe.  Where was I?  Ah, yeah, the bombs.  Why bombs?  Are they glitter bombs?  Are they full of marzipan and kittens?”</p>
<p>“They’re not mine,” Polka-Dot Man admits through clenched teeth.  “I’m just getting paid to run this; the bombs were part of the employer’s plan.  I told him I didn’t need that kind of shit, or the bad press from it, but he added some zeroes to the end of the check, so…”  He shrugs.</p>
<p>“Hm.  You should tell me how to turn ‘em off.  Otherwise, I’ll haveta see just how much of you I can bloody up before <i>my</i> employer uses the shock collar on me.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know shit about bombs,” the guy says, and takes a swing.</p>
<p>It connects with a dull smack.  Joker looks neither pleased nor impressed.</p>
<p>“Oh,” says Polka-Dot Man.  “Um.  Look, can we just forget—”</p>
<p>Joker tosses his pistol to flip it, catches it by the barrel, and whips their target across the mouth hard enough to send a tooth flying.  “No goddamn respect,” Joker growls.  “That’s the trouble with you young villains.  Well, if I can teach the Falcones to respect me, I can damn well teach some little Green-Arrow-knockoff.  I’m the Clown Prince of Crime, the Maestro of Mayhem, the Jester of Genocide—the greatest foe the Batman has ever faced—the one and only <i>Joker</i>.  Remember that shit while Satan’s reprogramming your brain later, ‘kay?”</p>
<p>Polka-Dot Man nods, quelled.</p>
<p>“Stay put for the Boy Scout—I gotta go defuse those bombs.  We’ve only got about five more minutes, after all.”</p>
<p>Flag wobbles to his feet (damn boomerang dot really hit him hard) and zips the robber’s wrists together before slapping a makeshift dressing on the gunshot wound.  “You know what you’re doing over there, Jay?”</p>
<p>Joker doesn’t answer, already elbows-deep in the bomb that’s next to the hostages.</p>
<p>“I don’t wanna die,” says a little girl.</p>
<p>Joker spares her a glance and a lopsided little smile.  “We all gotta die someday, pumpkin.  But not just now, and not to this silly bomb.”  And he pulls out the timing device with a wink.</p>
<p>Flag starts freeing hostages while Joker moves on to the next bomb.  By then, Croc’s staggered his way upright again, and Lawton’s come in the front door to wave the hostages to safety.</p>
<p>“Little help?” Digger whines, still trapped in a puff of hardened foam.</p>
<p>Croc claws him out bit by bit, jeering and teasing the whole time.</p>
<p>Ratcatcher squirms out of a vent in the wall and makes for the third bomb with a rodent in each hand.  Apparently, her furry friends are pretty knowledgeable about ordnance, because they get inside the casing, scrabble around a bit, and triumphantly return with the explosive payload.</p>
<p>Joker tosses the timer from the second bomb over his shoulder carelessly.  “Why bombs?” he says again.  “Four banks in as many weeks, only Dot-Dude’s tiny shaped-charge dots and nifty thermite dots, hostages all completely unscathed.  Suddenly the money wants to pay him extra to use bombs.  Were they hoping to get somebody else’s attention?”</p>
<p>“This is Green Lantern’s turf,” Lawton points out.</p>
<p>“Huh.  Think Waller wanted him instead?”</p>
<p>They all slowly gather around.</p>
<p>“Jay, you’re not even thinking that,” Lawton says.</p>
<p>“How would she turn him?” Croc asks.</p>
<p>Joker shrugs.  “Meh, just a thought.  Maybe she just wanted to show him up.  Let’s get Spot-Boy loaded up and go home.”</p>
<p>Their backup has the front of the bank cordoned pretty well, with some help from local SWAT.  Reporters and rubberneckers crowd the barricades at either end of the street, but they’re too far off to get any good footage.  The hostages are waiting at the SWAT field HQ across the way—they stare, shell-shocked, as Flag’s team gets into their armored transport.</p>
<p>“Thank you for saving us, Mr. Clown!” calls the little girl.  “You’re my hero!”</p>
<p>“Huh,” says Joker.</p>
<p>“This man is in official ARGUS custody,” Flag tells the CCPD lieutenant who’d been running the op before they arrived.  “You should have already received the appropriate paperwork.  The rest of it’s all yours, including the credit.”</p>
<p>“Nobody’s gonna believe it was us,” the cop growls.  “That whole circus out there saw Green Lantern fly in and your guys turn him away with some fancy government mandate.  They all know we wouldn’t dare.”</p>
<p>“That’s a shame,” says Flag, shrugging as he shoves Polka-Dot Man (whimpering and complaining about his knee) into the truck.  “Couldn’ta been us; we were never here.”<br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p>
<b>.End.</b></p>
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